


beauty is pain and beauty is everything .

by sp00kiiest



Series: i think there’s a flaw in my code [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorders, Established Relationship, M/M, OT4, POV Tsukishima Kei, Post-Time Skip, Tsukishima Kei Has An Eating Disorder, When will I stop hurting my boy, bokuakakurotsuki, no beta we die like men, sad tsukki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22804951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sp00kiiest/pseuds/sp00kiiest
Summary: Tetsuro is slower today, hands sliding over Kei’s skin like he’s something to be marvelled over and Kei can’t stand being touched like he’s worth being cherished.-Or: Kei experiences a relapse with his eating disorder after comparing himself to Keiji.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou
Series: i think there’s a flaw in my code [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639459
Comments: 35
Kudos: 742





	beauty is pain and beauty is everything .

Kei loves Keiji.

It’s a basic fact, and unrelenting truth. Keiji is intelligent, he’s kind and understanding and blissfully quiet. He knows what each of his boyfriends need and when and he’s _beautiful_. Kei’s lost count of the amount of times Koutaro and Tetsuro have waxed poetic about his eyes and nose and Kei agrees that Keiji is the closest thing to perfection the world will see.

So yes, Kei loves Keiji- but there’s something else there that he’s too afraid to name, dark and feral unfurling in his chest. 

Kei is thin, he has pale skin. Keiji is thin too, and pale too, but his body is lithe and graceful, and his skin is moon kissed and unblemished. Kei’s limbs are like branches, long, lifeless, forever caught and in the way. He has none of the grace Keiji embodies; his skin is pale but it’s too pale and it’s dotted and streaked with scars and freckles. Kei starts avoiding mirrors. 

He saves his reflection for the quietest hours when he’s entirely alone, he spends an eternity mapping his bare skin with his fingers and catalogues every time his head screams _WRONG WRONG WRONG._

His wrists are bony. They stick out like artwork unfinished and give way to palms a little too large and fingers a little too long. He likens himself to an eldritch horror. He turns his hands over and thinks them skeletal. He tries to smile in the mirror and recoils. Keiji has the prettiest smile, he thinks absently as his fingers press into his wrist. His eyes light up, lips curling, cheeks delicate and rounded. Keiji smiles like the sun and whilst their boyfriends are blinded, Kei seems to be the only one burning. 

Sometimes Kei is lucky enough to forget. Koutaro will bound to him the moment he gets home and hold him so tight there’s no time for that nameless feeling to worm through the cracks. Tetsuro will greet him with strawberry shortcake and a lidded smile that makes Kei’s chest and cheeks warm because Tetsuro loves in the loudest and quietest of ways. Keiji will pass him a hot chocolate in the morning, sweet and rich in the way he loves and curl around him like soft summer beams, no words needed but the tender brush of hands. Those moments leave him soft and pliant and bursting at the seams. 

Sometimes Kei is unlucky enough to remember. Three pairs of hands, a heat building, simmering beneath his skin and Kei thinks he’ll shatter beneath them all. He and Tetsuro have an understanding, they push each other further and further, teasing, taunting stopping just outside of each other’s limits. He’s always preferred the rough love, he likes the marks and bruises and memories of being pressed into, pleasure almost pain. It’s good for him that Koutaro has strength to spare. Koutaro had always been eager, but shied away from pressing too hard as if they would break. Kei had coaxed him soft and vulnerable in a way he’d never be during the day and shown Koutaro just how okay with it he really was.

Kei likes rough sex because he feels the most human in those moments, but he spies the way Tetsuro and Koutaro change when Keiji is their focus. They treat him like some precious thing, worship him like the last treasure on earth with a look in their eyes so unbearably soft and fond and longing that Kei thinks he hears himself crack and splinter. But it’s fine. It’s fine. They’re tougher with him because he asked them to be right? And just because they were all dating didn’t mean they had to be exactly the same. Dynamics were different. Love was different. It didn’t mean they loved him any less.  ~~ Right? ~~

It’s fine. It’s all fine. But it _isn’t_ and Kei starts watching, seeing more than he had before. Keiji is beautiful and he’s loved entirely and completely. Keiji has a way to make boring things enchanting. They go out and Keiji’s outfit makes Tetsuro kiss him before they get out of the door. Keiji soothes Koutaro without effort. His sarcastic remarks are welcomed and not once do they turn into the fights Kei and Tetsuro often have when Kei’s comments go too far. He’s quiet and stoic but not once does Koutaro accuse him of not caring. He’s even gentle with Kei, blissful and unaware of the growing pit in the blonde’s stomach. 

Kei hates him for it.

_ And he loves him so much more. _

Kei realises one day, slow and dawning that Keiji is small. They’re all tall, volleyball players often were, but Keiji was shorter than the rest of them. He spies it in the way Tetsuro sometimes presses Keiji backwards when they kiss, just to feel the smaller boy bow against him. He catches sight of it as Koutaro picks him up, Keiji’s soft legs wrapped around the spiker’s waist. Not once does he look gangly or awkward. He’s perfect. 

Kei has enough intelligence to know he physically can’t match that aspect of Keiji. He can’t lose the inches he gained in his youth, cant shrink himself so he no longer towers over his boyfriends. But he remembers being fourteen and tired and desperate to be small. Kids were cruel, that was a fact, but he remembers thinking back then they’d had a point. Why had he been so tall? So in the way? He looks at his boyfriends as they walk down the street, at the way he towers over them still and hears  _freak_ and _monster_ and _unwanted_ just like he’d heard in his youth. 

It almost frightens him how intense and suddenly the need to feel small comes in, like a storm on the sea. 

He doesn’t finish his plate at a restaurant. He skips lunch at work on the excuse that he’s busy. He claims to have eaten dinner before coming home. He drinks water like it’s the reason for living. He watches the scale drop and his bones protrude and he’s swept in by it. His collar bones look a little more elegant now, he’s struck by them and runs his fingers over their dips and ridges. He starts running with Koutaro in the mornings, claims that it’s because he misses him. He almost smiles as Tetsorou’s fingers linger on the slimness of his thighs. He almost laughs, full bodied and giddy as he watches the scale numbers drop. 

Then he ruins it.

He binges one night at home, eating as if it can fill the hole inside him. His boyfriends spot him in the living room, watching Jurassic Park despite its many (annoying) inaccuracies and Koutaro cheers about midnight snacks whilst Keiji snuggles into Kei’s side and Tetsuro fetches more blankets. 

In the morning Tetsuro teases him and Koutaro about how much they ate and Kei has to swallow the  hate and  guilt and _guilt and guilt_ as beautiful flawless Keiji sweeps by with his  tiny waist and  tinier wrists, one of Koutaro’s jumpers slipping off his shoulder. 

Months go by. Kei learns to withdraw, he learns to eat when he’s home, nibble the last half of snacks (first half conveniently thrown in the bins outside their apartments) when walking through he door so they think he’s just eaten. Seasons change and Kenma visits. They aren’t friends, they’re something almost like it. But Kenma is dangerous. He knows that for a fact because his eyes fall on Kei and he swears the ex setter knows. He knows. He knows. He knows he knowshekno— Kei excuses himself an hour into Kenma’s visit, pretending a call from work forces him away. 

He comes back when it’s dark outside, his boyfriends already asleep and Kenma on their shitty pullout couch, face lit by the screen of his phone. He spares Kei a glance and Kei waits, heart in his throat, anger and defence rising in his blood. The confrontation he worries about doesn’t come, instead Kenma nudges a plate towards him, a single slice of strawberry shortcake on it. It’s feels like a challenge. Like a compromise. So he sits opposite the cat, legs crossed and fingers shaking as he slowly takes bites out of it. His brain is spinning running through calories and Kei only gets through half of it before panic claws at his throat and he worries he’ll vomit. It’s good enough for Kenma apparently because wordlessly he shuts off his phone and lays on the makeshift bed, eyes closed. 

Kei stares at him for a moment before staggering to his feet. 

“You should tell them.” 

He pauses, shoulders tense as he stares at the handle to his room and tries to work the words past the lump in his throat. His boyfriends are sleeping in there, untroubled and peaceful because they don’t know. Kei is shaking out here, tired and alone because he does. 

“They deserve more than that.”And what he means is they deserve so much more than me.

“They need you.” Kenma says because he knows and Kei hates it. He scoffs thoughtlessly. “You think they don’t?” There’s no emotion to his tone, not accusing or pitying. 

“The only people they need are each other.” He says, because he’s seen the way they breathe each other like oxygen. 

Without another word he slips into the bedroom he shares with them. They’re all asleep, Keiji in the middle with Koutaro sleeping on more of him than the mattress. Tetsuro is on Keiji’s other side, neck at such an angle it makes Kei wince just looking at it. He gently slips a hand beneath his head, the other steadying his face as he moves Tetsuro to a more comfortable position. He takes a moment to let his fingers drift over Tetsuro’s cheek, tracing his features lightly. He still doesn’t understand how they can love him so much sometimes. The fact that his reality is them seems like an incredible impossible dream. Kei withdraws, and undresses and he doesn’t plan to look in the mirror but he catches sight of his reflection and is hypnotised. 

He runs his palms over the concave of his stomach, drags a trail up to his collar bones and watches as they catch in the moonlight peeking through the curtains. His hands fall down to curl around his waist, it’s smaller now than he remembers and he pushes it in slightly, wondering if it’s smaller than Keiji’s. His hipbones carve out and his legs look thinner, in the pale light he can barely make out the blemishes on his skin. He looks almost pretty, he thinks. He casts a glance over his shoulder at beautiful slender Akaashi and when he turns back to the mirror his hands dig into his skin hard enough to leave the half moon indents of his nails. 

“Almost,” he whispers. 

“Almost.”

He should’ve known it wouldn’t be so easy. 

Kenma leaves as quickly as he comes and it’s a week later that it all falls apart. He’s spread on the bed, hair curling gently on his sweat damp skin. He’s dainty enough now that sometimes he feels the cold like ice in his veins, he’s tiny enough now that harsh winds make him sway. His cream sweater is warm and soft and Tetsuro pushes it up so that he can tug on the band of his fishnets, sitting high and white on his waist. Koutaro is knelt on the bed beside him, sucking bruises into Keiji’s neck. Tetsuro is slower today, hands sliding over Kei’s skin like he’s something to be marvelled over and Kei can’t stand being touched like he’s worth being cherished.

“I thought you were going to fuck me,” he pants, “Have you forgotten ho—“

“When did you get so small?”

There’s a furrow between Tetsuro’s brows and realises his touch hadn’t been appreciative, they’d been cataloguing the damage. His hands slide over Kei’s ribs, counting, and Kei panics, grasping at Tetsuro’s wrists. It was the wrong move and Tetsuro jerks back before grasping both his wrists in one hand. The look in his eyes is dark- furious and seething and Kei feels guilt and shame burning inside him like anger. 

“What’s going on?” It’s Keiji. He pushes Koutaro away from his neck, and both of them stare at Kei and Tetsuro’s position with concerned eyes. Kei can’t even bare to look at him right now. Instead he turns his head and stares at the mirror, focusing on the way his stomach caves in so tiny and empty.

“Nothing.” He snaps.

“He hasn’t been eating.” Tetsurou says, eyes turning back to Kei. “Have you?”

Kei’s hands curl into fists and he watches his reflection, counts his breaths and tries to slow down the emotions simmering beneath his skin. 

“I ate this morning. Keiji cooked breakfast.” He argues but Tetsuro presses harder on his wrists and repeats himself. 

“You haven’t been eating.” Koutaro says softly, features lit in realisation and Kei catches a glimpse of his eyes turning sad in the mirror. “Is this what Kenma meant?” He asks and Kei jerks at that, head whipping towards him because if Kenma told _if Kenma told_ —

“Kenma?” Tetsuro questions. “What does he have to do with this?”

“When he was here he- he told Tsukki to tell us something.” He begins and Kei thrashes uselessly beneath Tetsuro, all the more unwilling to be part of this conversation. “I think Tsukki said no, and then Kenma said that we need you and you said...” Koutaro draws in a breath like the words hurt him and Kei clenches his eyes shut because he know what’s coming next and why _the fuck_ does Koutaro even know this? 

“He said the only ones we needed were each other.” He finishes, addressing the others instead of Kei. Tetsuro frowns at that, grip loosening slightly but Kei is too anxious to breathe let alone try and move away. 

“Okay...” Tetsuro says slowly, tone confused. “But that’s right.” 

“He meant we need each other.” Keiji explains, voice slow and carefully empty. “Us. The three of us. Not him.”Kei flinches at the words and he can feel each of their stares like a hot brand. 

“I was awake, when you came into the room. You just stood staring at the mirror and I thought you looked thin but you’ve always been skinny I thought it was okay I thought.” Koutaro starts babbling and his voice breaks but all Kei feels is burning shame. 

“So you were spying on me.” He accuses and the words burn his throat. He doesn’t want to make Kou sound like a villain but he’s defensive and afraid and that all translates to anger. He can’t afford to be anything else. 

“I didn’t mean to-“ Koutaro says the same time as Tetsuro snaps “Hey don’t turn this around on him. He’s done nothing wrong.” The silence following his words make it clear to Kei that no, Kou’s done nothing wrong but he clearly has. And hasn’t he always? Always the problem, always the cause of some issue. Kei briefly thinks that perhaps if he doesn’t eat long enough he’ll be small enough to disappear completely. Keiji is watching him quietly with eyes as perceptive as Kenma and Kei turns his head to look back at the mirror. 

“Do you really think we don’t need you?” 

It isn’t what he was expecting Keiji to say. Kei makes a noise in the back of his throat, half derisive half disbelieving. _Did they really think that they did?_ “We aren’t talking about this.” The blonde says before adding as an afterthought, “Tetsuro get off me.” 

“Yes we are.” Keiji says, still quiet and calm. Tetsuro doesn’t move but he hesitates as if he’s considering it. Instead the cat runs his free hand over Kei’s ribs again. 

“I can count your ribs.” Tetsuro says in a voice so quiet the others almost don’t hear him. Kei goes tense beneath his touch. “Kei I can count your ribs.” He repeats with emphasis. 

“Congratulations you know basic math.” 

“Kei, please,”

And that gets his attention because it’s not Tetsuro it’s Koutaro and Kei’s attention fixates on the way his voice had broke. Koutaro shifts, reaching up to tug gently at Kei’s fingers where they’ve curled into fists. Tetsuro shifts back slightly and out of the way. 

“What?” The blonde aims for angry and instead his voice is small. 

“What’s going on?” Koutaro presses, every part of him gentle. “Why are you so small? Why didn’t you tell us? What did Kenma mean Kei? Why are you-“ he cuts off and sniffles and Kei is horrified to find Koutaro on the verge of crying. 

“Kou- I-“ His words fail him and Kei watches as Keiji pulls their boyfriend into his side, giving him comfort because _Kei_ caused him pain. 

“Kenma told me I should tell you, and I told him you deserve more than that, and I was right. I was right because here I am, screwing up. Again.” He says it without thinking, bitter laugh bubbling out of his throat. Confessing things was meant to take the weight off your chest right? So why did he feel like his chest was caving in. 

“How long?” Keiji asks and Kei sags beneath Tetsuro, a dead weight. He’s never felt so tired. 

“I don’t know,” he answers. “Five months? Maybe six?” He’d started counting time in calories not dates. 

“We didn’t even notice,” Tetsuro says and Kei can see guilt creeping into his expression. It makes him sick. It’s not their fault, he wants to scream. It’s not. It’s his fucked up head. His thoughts. They did nothing wrong. It’s his fault. 

“Don’t do that.” Kei says with a glare. “Don’t start blaming yourselves this is my mess, not yours. Mine.”

“Why did you do it Kei?” Koutaro asks and Kei closes his eyes wishing he could fade into the darkness behind his lids. That’s a question he doesn’t want to answer. It’s a question with too many answers. Because he’s tired. Because it feels so good to be empty. Because he feels safe in restricting. Because he’d been smaller once, and he’d forgotten how much he needs the feeling. Because he wants to be small. Wants to be beautiful. Wants to be breakable, just to be human for a little while. 

“I-“ he swallows thickly, eyes burning behind closed lids and he’s not going to cry. He won’t. He won’t. Shame curls in his chest hot white and branding and Kei can’t bring himself to explain fully. Instead he settles for a, “I just want to be worth something.” And if his voice breaks it’s nobody’s business. _I want to be worth you_ , he thinks and it isn’t until Tetsuro reels off of him that he’s realises he’s spoken the thought.

The bed dips either side of him and Kei keeps his eyes closed, breath stale in his lungs. 

“Kei.” It’s a plea, and hands cup his face. “Kei look at us.” 

He clenches his eyes shut harder in response, skin crawling with shame. Pathetic, he thinks. He’s utterly pathetic. 

“Kei,” Keiji tries again. “Open your eyes.” His voice is too gentle for Kei to do anything but obey. He blinks open slowly, lashes clumped and vision blurry. Shame threatens to swallow him completely when he realises it’s because he’s on the verge of crying. 

“You,” Keiji begins and his voice shakes. “You are worth so much Kei.” Arms sit him up and wrap around him from behind, he only realises it’s Koutaro when the spiker presses his head to Kei’s shoulder. 

“Shut up,” he says voice and body trembling. 

“We love you.” Tetsuro adds in. “So much. We need you- so much Kei.”

“ _Shut up._ ” He tries again. “Please shut up.”

“You’re incredible Kei.” They continue and Kei grabs onto Koutaro’s arms like an anchor. 

“But I’m not,” he says weakly. And he wishes he would stop talking. He wishes they would stop talking.

“I’m an asshole. I’m sarcastic and rude and I push too far and I keep screwing up— I’m too tall, I’m weird and I don’t” He’s pauses, breath stuttering in his chest. “I don’t understand why you even want me, I’m not even attractive-“ Koutaro’s arms lock tighter around him. 

“You’re incredible,” Keiji repeats. “You’re smart and stubborn and you always say what we need to hear,” he lists. 

“And you’re beautiful.” Tetsuro cuts in. Kei feels Koutaro nod against his neck. “God Kei you’re so beautiful.”

Kei hunches, head bowed and wonders numbly when he started actually crying. Words build in his throat protests of how he isn’t, all the  ways he isn’t, but he doesn’t have the energy to say them. Tetsuro and Keiji surge forward and embrace him so tightly he can’t breathe. When they hold him like this Kei doesn’t ever want to.

There are still things they need to say but for now they curl around each other and Kei listens to their soft reassurances until he falls asleep.


End file.
